Hide and Seek
by Ishmael1
Summary: Talbain fights in order to learn who he is


Note: The following is a parody. Characters in this story are copyright and trademarked by Capom and are not owned by the author of this story.   
  
  
Shoving his gloves into an inner pocket of his jacket, Derek Jacobsen came out of the grove of bushes he was in and back onto the park sidewalk. As Derek headed over to a solitary bench barely illuminated by a fading streetlamp he quickly brushed off his trouser legs and straightened the front of his jacket. An old transient, his face hidden in the dark by his scraggly white hair, was staring down at the cracks in the sidewalk.  
  
"Hey there buddy, mind if I have a seat?"  
  
The transient sitting on the park bench didn't look up at the person talking to him. Taking the silence as a sign of approval Derek tossed himself down on the other end of the bench.  
  
"Great night isn't it?" Derek said, looking up at the clear night's sky. "Y'know, it's funny, I pass this park all the time but I never come in here. I remember when I was a kid my mom telling me not to come in here since she thought this place was full of killers and weirdos. No offense, of course."  
  
"You're here now."  
  
"Yeah, well, I don't always do what's best for me," he laughed, "That, and I needed to clear my head after being at the bars. I'm sure you know all about needing to clear your head after putting away one to many, right?" Derek, a bit too loudly, laughed again. "But you must see a lot of people come through this park at night to cool off...?"  
  
"You're the only living soul I've seen this evening."  
  
"Really? Huh. Say, what's your name buddy? I'm Derek."  
  
"Jon."  
  
"Jon? So tell me Jon, how did you end up here? You weren't always like this, right? What made you end up living here on this bench?"  
  
"A woman." The homeless man continued to stare at the ground.  
  
"No kidding? Hey, that's not bad. It certainly beats the 'Vietnam vet' line I've heard a million times before. So did she toss you out on the street and keep the house?"  
  
"You want to hear my story?"  
  
"Sure, lay it on me," Derek said, "Like I said, I need a bit of a break."  
  
"It was... nearly forty years ago that it started. I'm not sure how I became afflicted with lycanthropy. I wasn't enthralled by a curse from an old gypsy woman nor did I make a poor trade with the devil. One day I wasn't cursed and the next I was. "  
  
"Cursed with what again?"  
  
"Lycanthropy. To become a child of the dark, to become a wolf."  
  
"You thought you were a werewolf?" Derek laughed. "Shit man, what were you on? Sorry," Derek said, composing himself, "so you were a wolf?"  
  
"It was a curse but it was something I thought I could survive, even conquer," Jon continued, seeming not to hear Derek, "I was still a man even if I wasn't always a man. Routine can make anything normal, even something that horrific. A man can live a solitary life filled with moderation and self control for years, decades, or as long as he never questions his actions. Through the discipline of exercise and the release of training I was able to control myself. Or I could until the succubus came."  
  
"Wait a minute old timer I didn't catch that," Derek interrupted, "what did you say she was?"  
  
"A succubus. She said her name was Morrigan Aensland, but I don't know if this was her true name or not. Because of my curse I had become a being of the night but she was the night. She was the personification of temptation, of evil, of everything you know is wrong but still desire. She was beauty and danger that flew on bat wings."  
  
"Okay, right." The novelty of the conversation was starting to wear off for Derek. "A woman flew in and made your life hell. Been there, done that."  
  
"Even after all these months one of the wounds she gave me still occasionally flairs up. Magic takes some time to find its way out of a body." The transient picked at a scab on his arm. Gleaming yellow liquid bubbled out. A few drops floated in the air, turned into tiny bats and flew away while the rest hit the ground as a tiny glowing lizard. Derek, who was half-standing getting ready to leave, stared at the illuminated reptile as he sat back down on the bench.  
  
"So… uh, she came after you?"  
  
"Do you know what it's like to lose your mind? To feel everything that you thought of as you washing away, leaving a primitive, primordial thing beneath? I could feel the rational, human part of my mind slipping away, losing ground to beast inside of me. Just as I had inexplicably become a wolf the control I had over myself began to mysteriously ebb. The balance in me had somehow been upset and I was terrified of what would happen. Imagine coming to the realization you couldn't trust your feelings, your judgment, even your own body. I had gone to war with myself. Instead of attempting to reign in my curse by trying to perfect the control of my transformations and the supernatural abilities I had gained I tried to suppress my curse altogether. My lycanthropy had gone from being a cross I had to bear to something I was certain would destroy me.  
  
"Since I felt the control of my curse was slipping I fought against it harder than before, determined that even if I was no longer human my curse wouldn't prevail. I would train furiously during the day, trying to build up physically what I was losing mentally. At night I would take tranquilizers, sleeping pills, alcohol -all at doses that would kill a normal man- in the hopes that my curse wouldn't take over while I slept. I lived in that cycle for years, losing track of my friends, family and everything else from my former life. Because I was fighting down the part of me that was a natural hunter it took me a long time, too long, to wonder if there was another force at work."  
  
Jon kicked at the lizard which fell apart into smaller reptiles before it oozed back into its old shape.  
  
"One evening I wasn't tired and hadn't yet tried to sedate myself. Instead I sat on the bed in the room I rented and thought about what it could have been that had cause me to sink so low. Perhaps it was me consciously pitying myself or perhaps she felt it was time to show herself. I felt her watching me before I actually looked out the window and saw her; a woman with long emerald hair floating in the night's sky. Upon seeing her I transformed, for the first time in five years, and threw myself through the window after her.   
  
"I chased her for miles but she always remained just out of my reach. She looked delighted with the chase. I pushed myself until I was foaming at the mouth from exhaustion as I ran after her. On some primitive level I knew that she was somehow connected to my plight. The night seemed endless as I blindly pursued her through impossibly deserted streets. Finally she led me to this park. She settled on top of a chain link fence, her feet barely resting on the one of the posts. 'So the first time you need to do something other than pity yourself your true self comes out,' she said as she looked down at me, 'It seems your body knows who you really are even if you're in denial.'  
  
"I stopped in my tracks when I understood what she meant. The moment I had seen her I had transformed into a wolf. My years of fighting against myself had been lost in an instant. I screamed something foolish at her about knowing she was somehow connected to me. Her only answer was to laugh which sent me into a rage. The claws on my hands slid out as I sprung at her. But instead of tearing into her she avoided me with laughable ease and kicked me into the fence. The mesh fence wrapped around me and part of the support beam gouged into my arm as I fell." The transient stopped to look at his dirty, human fingernails. "My attack on her had been such a spontaneous act that I had tried to rend her apart with my claws. If I had killed her then I would never have known what was destroying me. I wasn't in my right that evening and I hadn't been for some time. When I inspected the wound on my arm I remember fighting down the urge to lick it clean. The thought of what I had almost done sickened me at the time. I may have been losing my grip as a man but I was still determined not to become an animal.   
  
"I loped after her as best I could on my injured limb and found her waiting for me on top of a street lamp. Instead of pouncing at her again I held my ground and asked her why she had been following me for all those weeks.  
  
"'You're annoyed because a young woman showed some interest in you?' she replied. 'Most men would feel differently.'  
  
"Letting my frustration get the best of me again I howled at her that it wasn't a game we were playing. Instead of answering me she swept down, grabbed me by the scruff of my lupine neck, and shot us both into the air. It only took me a second to regain my wits but before I tried to free myself from her grip I saw where we were. She had flown us high into the air, above even the clouds that dotted the night's sky. We were so high up I could see the twinkling of the city lights far below us. Frost began to form on the fur of my heated body, the pain from the thin patch of skin that was holding me aloft was unbearable and my ears were bursting from the change in air pressure but I didn't move. I was unsure whether even my inhuman body could survive a fall from that height so, because I still feared death at that point, I froze.  
  
"'You think this isn't a game?' My tormenter had no trouble with either holding me aloft or breathing in the thin atmosphere. 'Oh, but it is. A game of life or death, of knowledge or ignorance, of acceptance or fear. If you want me to answer your questions all you have to do is-'  
  
"Desperation drove me to attack her. Before I could finish swinging a hand up to grab her she dropped me by sending a bolt of magic through her hand. The blast from the spell burnt the hair that she had been holding and roasted my skin as it ran along my body. The pain was indescribable as part of the magic bolt poured into and through the wound on my arm. I could feel the magic race along my bones and between my muscles as it ran through my arm like water. As I began to free fall the woman grabbed onto my neck. One flap of her black wings sent both of us hurtling toward the ground. Even though my arm was on fire and my eyes were watering from the friction of the speed we were traveling at I could still make out the look of cheer on the face of the woman who was sending me to my doom.  
  
"When I hit the ground I wasn't killed instantly like I expected. Her wings still extended from the last second slow-down she had performed to spare my life, the succubus laughed delightedly and nestled herself on top of me. My head was spinning from the impact but I could feel her straddling me as she stretched herself down my prone body and could smell the mixture of perfume and pheromones she exuded. 'That was fun, wasn't it?' she asked me, breathing the question down my open snout. Still dazed from the impact I drunkenly swung my hands up, trying to pin her in place. She flew up and away from me, knocking my head into the ground with her knee as she, once again, avoided my grasp.  
  
""Still only using your hands, aren't you? But getting back to what I was saying earlier, all you have to do is catch me and I'll answer any question your little heart desires.' She circled above me, taunting me, as I pulled myself together. 'But if you're going to catch me,' she continued, 'I dare say you're going to have to do better than that last attempt because I'm not going to save you every time you take a spill.' Since I barely heard her from the ringing in my ears all I did was curse her, demanding that she explain herself. 'Since you seem a bit on the slow side in more ways than one I've been easy on you so far,' she replied, 'but the rest of the evening is for real. Can you catch me before I find some hapless new playmates to amuse myself with? This is a big city and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there simply dying for my attention. Let's see how you do when the stakes are raised.'  
  
"My stupor left me instantly when I realized what she meant. Just as she had been torturing me for months seemingly for nothing more than her own amusement she was now going to attack any innocent person she came across in order to further torment me.   
It seemed that monster was even more cruel than I had first thought. A low growl of anger started in the back of my throat which I fought with until I swallowed it back down. I felt I was going to need all my wits about me if I was going to survive that night and I couldn't afford to let my uncontrolled beast side gain control."   
  
Jon paused in his reminisces to stretch his back, giving Derek a brief look at his face. Even though the transient had the rasp of an old man, his face was taunt and young looking.  
  
"Even after all this time," Jon continued, "I can remember the feeling of being muted as I chased after the succubus. I could barely make out her distinctive scent even though I knew I was only a few seconds behind her just as my once keen hearing could barely make out the sound of my own nails scrabbling along the cement. My senses were so poor that I initially overshot the alley that she had turned down. When I caught up with Morrigan she had found a homeless man who had been sleeping in a pile of blankets that he had clumped up behind a dumpster. One hand barely resting on the back of his right shoulder held the man in place. Smoky streams of magic ran from her hand down the man's body. Even with my stunted senses I could tell the man smelled of unwashed grime and urine while his eyes were glazed over with mental illness and a look of extreme pleasure. I bellowed at her to let him go.  
  
"'Why? He doesn't seem to mind.' The homeless man she was holding could only gurgle incoherently. 'Tell me wolf man; don't you care about this aspect of your life?' Morrigan cradled her head onto the man's left shoulder while she slid her other hand down his chest and into his pants. "You're not much of an animal, or much of a man, if you don't.'  
  
"Unlike you, I have self-control,' I replied."  
  
"'Control?' she said, laughing at me, 'All you have is denial. If my guess is correct you've spent your life worrying about what your wolf form could do to someone you cared for so you've spent years trying to suppress your instincts. When I was on top of you a moment ago what was going through that dazed little mind of yours? The physical desire to either take me or tear me apart? But you held back just as you've been doing all night. What do you know about control?' The man Morrigan was pressed into let out a wheezing moan. 'About as much as this fellow it seems.'  
  
"When she glanced down at him I struck. I pulled my kick so that I would only hit the succubus and not smash her head into the man she was holding. She was fast as the devil, however, and darted out of the way while leaving the transient in the path of my attack. He only caught a glancing blow from my foot but it was enough to fling him into the nearby dumpster.  
  
"'Nice shot hero,' she crowed at me as she took to the air. 'Considering you can't even help yourself what made you think you could do something for others?'  
  
"Before I resumed my chase I spared a second to look at the homeless man. He was breathing but not moving. There was a time when I would have been able to tell his condition instantly, from the sound of any cracked bones to the smell of broken blood vessels underneath the skin. At that low point, however, I had to be content with assuring myself that I hadn't hit the man too hard so he should fully recover. As I ran off after the succubus I again wondered why she was doing this. Was I as randomly chosen as the people she was now intent on terrorizing? I tried to suppress the anger I was feeling but Morrigan wasn't giving me a chance to collect myself.  
  
"The succubus flew randomly down the streets, pausing occasionally when I fell too far behind. Seeing something around a corner, she broke into a wide grin and shot off. Rounding the corner I saw the succubus gliding toward a young couple who were sitting on a stairway. Pushing for an extra burst of speed, I ran towards them and started yelling warnings to the two would-be victims. The two young people, neither of whom looked older than fifteen, turned toward me with a look of shock when they heard my voice. Both the boy and girl let out shrill screams of terror and almost pushed each other down as they rushed into the apartment building they had been sitting in front of. My run slowed down to a crawl as realization struck me. I had been so anxious to warn them of Morrigan and so tired from running that my warning had come out sounding more like a gurgling bark instead of a human voice. The two hadn't seen their rescuer but instead saw a monster larger than a man running down the street towards them.  
  
"Floating above me, Morrigan laughed. It was a soft, flowing laugh that she shielded with the back of her hand. I hated it all the more because it sounded so cultivated.  
  
"'What a story those two will have to tell. Don't you know by now that humans fear our kind?' I growled at her that I was nothing like her. 'Are you sure? Do you actually think of yourself as human? Do you even know what you are? I think it's time we put you to the test.'  
  
"She flew off so quickly it was all I could do to keep her in sight. Coming to another apartment building she weaved along in front of the windows as if in search of something. Somehow slipping between the small grates on the screen of an open window the succubus slipped into the building and came back out a second later carrying a bundle in her arms. She smiled down to me as she ascended to the top of the apartment's roof. A flap of her wings sent down the scent of what she was holding: milk, talcum powder, and freshly washed skin. I knew what Morrigan was carrying even though I prayed I was wrong.  
  
"I leapt onto the side of the apartment building and began to climb. My body wasn't built for climbing even under the best of circumstances and the exertion I had gone through during the evening had left me exhausted. My claws were cracking and starting to bleed at their bases as I pulled myself up the concrete building and the wound on my limb, bubbling out a mixture of blood and glowing magic, had re-opened from the exertion of climbing. I knew the scrabbling noise I was making as I scaled the apartment could draw more unwanted attention to myself but I needed to be fast since I didn't trust the succubus to wait for me.  
  
"When I pulled myself onto the roof I found Morrigan standing on the opposite edge. She was playing with the baby she was holding. 'Isn't she adorable?' she asked as the child wrapped a small hand around her finger. 'So small, so delicate, and so wonderfully simple in her needs. Unlike the adults around her she doesn't get weighed down by distractions. Speaking of which, it's time to sort out just what you are. Are you the man you want to be or the monster you think you are?'  
  
"'What are you talking about?' I grunted. I was so mentally and physically exhausted that it was all I could do to remain standing.  
  
"'It's the judgment of Solomon, or perhaps a game of fetch,' she replied. The wings on her back split off and turned into bats that fluttered off into the darkness. 'I'm going to stand here and not move. On my family's name I promise it. The person that has been tormenting you all night, the woman you think has been ruining your life is finally within your reach. But,' Morrigan held the baby at arm's length, out over the roof's edge, "if you come after me you won't be able to save her. Which is it going to be? Your own well being or someone else's safety? Sacrifice or self-preservation?"  
  
"'What kind of choice is that?' I screamed at her, 'What gives you the right to play with the lives of others?'   
  
"'Oh, quit whining, you should know by now that life isn't fair,' Morrigan said and pitched the baby off the roof.  
  
"I remember screaming, no, howling in frustration and rage. I leapt toward the edge of the roof but twisted myself in mid-air so I was headed directly toward the succubus. I barely had time to see the look of self-satisfied amusement on her face replaced with one of surprise before my teeth clamped onto her neck. The momentum of my jump sent both of us spiraling off the building. I could hear the sound of tearing flesh, of snapping cartilage and bone and could feel the warm spray of blood in my mouth as I bit down into her throat. With a jerk of my head I flung her to one side, spitting out a mouth-full of gore along with her. I pulled the falling baby to myself with one hand while my other three limbs grabbed onto the side of the building. The bottoms of my paws were torn open on the hard surface but I slowed down my descent enough that I was able, with one last, desperate leap, to land back on the roof.   
  
"'Trying to have your cake and eat it to?' a laughing voice called out to me. 'I didn't think you had the nerve to go for me and the brat at the same time.' On the opposite edge of the roof sat Morrigan. Her front was sprayed with blood but there were no marks on her flawless body. I set the baby on the roof and staggered up to two feet and told her, if it was the last thing I did, I would kill her for what she had done to me.  
  
"'My, what an original sentiment,' she replied. 'It must be time to end this since you're getting far too melodramatic. Besides, you're not as empty as you were before so it must be getting cramped in there. Come on out Lilith!'  
  
At her command I felt a swell of pressure start in my chest. Energy pushed out of my body, spraying out of every pore of my skin. The strain was too great and I slumped down to one knee, reverting to human form. The energy swirled together in the air, shifting until it took the form of a second succubus. She looked like a younger version of Morrigan.  
  
"'You found me!' The girl cheered. She ran over to hug Morrigan but stopped short. 'Eww, you're all sticky.'  
  
"'It'll wash off. Go put that baby back where I got it from and then scoot on home, I'll catch up later.' Morrigan swatted the girl's backside, which drew a squeal of delight, as the smaller succubus flew off with the magically sleeping child.  
  
"I begged her to explain what was going on. 'It's a bit of a game I play with my better half occasionally,' Morrigan said as she slid off the roof edge. 'She finds somewhere to hide and I have to seek her out. Since it was unoccupied she was using your heart as a hidey hole.'  
  
"'What?' I asked, 'When did you put that girl in me?' I felt even more weak and confused than before. Had I finally discovered the truth? Had that girl been inside me, manipulating me, for years?   
  
"'I didn't put her there; she picked you out all on her own. Well, she is me or an aspect of me if you want to get technical about it so in a way I did-'  
  
"'How long?' I yelled at her.  
  
"'We started the game a fortnight ago. I finally tracked her down to you two days ago and was debating how best to coerce her out when you finally noticed my presence and started chasing me.'   
  
"I told her that was impossible. My feelings of persecution and loss of control had started years before that. If that succubus had caused all my pain how could she have only just recently started haunting me?  
  
"'Impossible?' she asked me, 'Who are you to set the limit on what is possible? It seems the only thing you understand is limitations. Still, you did manage to bushwhack me and I am a woman of my word so I'll explain everything to you. Do you want to know why I've been after you all night wolf man? Lilith chose you because you have been so plagued by indecision and self-doubt that you were, in effect, hollow inside. The only way I could get Lilith to come out was to make you decide to be something, anything instead of the void you have been. Your problems have nothing to do with possession, supernatural interference from yours truly, or any other outside force. It's called life. To put it simply you're a werewolf but you refuse to accept that. Instead you deny and suppress what you are. All that training, all that desire to be "human" was making you move further and further away from what you actually are. That's why you were unable to catch me and why Lilith was able to find such an easy hiding place inside you.'  
  
"'Do you think I'm so easy to understand?' I scoffed. If I hadn't been exhausted I would have tried to attack her in spite of being in my human form. 'Are you so sure of yourself that you can swoop down and instantly know me better than I know myself?'  
  
"'Yes, actually. I admit it does sound presumptuous on my part even if I am right,' she said. 'Tell me, what did you feel when you finally latched your jaws onto my throat? Exhilaration at running down an enemy? Joy at the taste of my blood in your mouth? A feeling, for the first time in a long time, that you were alive?' I was silent. She came up to me and ran her hand through my matted hair. For a second she looked at me with an expression of sympathy that was free from the irony and superiority she carried. 'Remember, you can choose your path but you must still accept what you are.' With that she floated up into the air, leaving me alone in the night.  
  
"I had nearly been killed over a game of hide and seek. That succubus was spoiled, selfish, and I owe everything I am now to her. After all this time I still don't know whether I should kill her or thank her for setting me free."  
  
"I don't get it," Derek said. "You're living on the street, what do you have to thank her for?"  
  
"In spite of everything she did she was right about my afflictions and was honest enough to tell me." Jon ran a hand through his hair, as if to imitate how the succubus had touched him. "I had become so obsessed with deciding what I was not I forgot to determine what I was. How could I live when I was so determined not to? All that changed when I accepted what she had told me."  
  
"I am a werewolf, a monster, and I understand that now. Instead of trying the live hollow existence I had pretending to be a normal man I'm finished limiting myself. By doing so I've finally freed myself of the duplicity that governs so much of life, such as whatever it was that drove you to kill that woman you hid in the bushes. Yes, I know what you did," Jon said when he heard Derek's breath catch in his throat. "I don't know who she was but she was already gone by the time I came across you. I was too late to save her but you saved me the trouble of hunting you down by coming straight to me. The reason you put on the performance of striking up a conversation with me was to determine if I had seen anything. You thought that if you had to kill a homeless old man to cover your tracks it wouldn't be that much more trouble am I right?"  
  
"Something like that," Derek said. Instead of trying to silence the transient as he had originally planned Derek had unconsciously slid to the far edge of the bench.  
  
"You were trying to deceive me this evening just as you were intent on spending the rest of your life lying about what you did tonight. The life you're leading is more laden with self-deception than me at my worst. Now that I've embraced what I truly am I comprehend the world around me so much more clearly," Jon continued. "It is glorious. I could hear your footfalls stop when you first spotted me on this bench and your attempt at moving at a casual pace as you walked up toward me. I can't smell any alcohol or smoke that would hang on you if you had been at a bar but I can smell the fear and desperation that is making you sweat underneath your sports coat. Not only can I see the guilt on your face but no matter where you hide I'll be able to seek you out." Jon finally looked directly at Derek. The homeless man had piercing, yellow eyes. Wolf's eyes. "You should start running now." Jon said through a mouth of sharp canine teeth.  
  
Derek scrambled off the bench and fled blindly into the park. He had never been much of a runner and he was already tired from everything else he had done that evening but panic kept Derek moving in spite of having to gasp for breath and the sharp, stabbing pain in his side. As Derek ran he could hear thick, padded feet loping behind him, slowly, deliberately running him down. 


End file.
